FT MEPDE 








I' 



\ 











JOSHUA SCOTTOW AND JOHN ALDEN 


BY 

HAMILTON ANDREWS HILL, A.M. 







I30S 


OLD SOUTH CHURCH 
BOSTON 


SUNDAY EVENING 
OCTOBER 26, 1884 



may 2 : 1916 


JOSHUA SCOTTOW AND JOHN ALDEN. 


We are assembled, Christian friends, this evening, to con- 
secrate with appropriate services some carefully-wrought me- 
morials recently placed upon the walls of this house of wor- 
ship, which bear the names of the reverend men who, in the 
past, have taught and labored as the ministers of the Old 
South or Third Church, and of two of the most distinguished 
of its lay members. We are come together, also, to dedicate 
anew certain stones, rude and fragmentary, reared by a gen- 
eration itself long since passed away, which were intended to 
mark the last resting place of two of the founders of the Third 
Church, and of another who, by family ties, was closely con- 
nected with it. These stones, wonderfully preserved amid 
the mutations and decay of an hundred and eighty or two 
hundred years, have, by a strange concurrence of events, come 
into our possession, and Providence seems to have laid it upon 
us as a sacred duty to provide for their further preservation 
and to hand them safely down to those who are to come after 
us. Not, indeed, that they can ever again designate the 
graves which they once marked, for all traces of these graves 
have been irretrievably lost ; but in their new position they 
may help to commemorate to this and succeeding generations, 
the devout character and Christian seiwice of those whose 
names they bear. 

It is recorded of the kindly old enthusiast who renewed 
with his chisel the half-defaced inscriptions on the tombstones 
of the Scotch covenanters, that to talk of the exploits of these men 
1 


2 


was the delight, as to repair their monuments was the business of 
his life. And we are told, also, that while he was renewing the 
crumbling emblems of the zeal and sufferings of the fathers, 
he considered that he was thereby trimming the beacon light 
which was to warn future generations to defend their religion 
even unto blood. In the same spirit, while we would piously 
care for the venerable stones which have descended to us from 
an early Puritan age, we would endeavor by means of them 
to recall the virtue, the constancy, the self-denial and the 
suffering which made the Puritan era so memorable, and to 
learn anew the lessons which with such solemn and tender 
emphasis they seem designed to teach. 

The oldest of the three stones which are to be placed in posi- 
tion in the portico of this meeting-house, bears the name of 
Ann Quincy, who died September 3, 1676, at the age of thir- 
teen years.* Ann or Anna Qiiincy was a daughter of Edmund 
Quincy, third of the name, and of his wife Joanna (Hoar) 
Quincy, of Braintree. She was a niece by marriage of John 
Hull, one of the founders of this Church (whose wife was 
Judith Quincy), and a cousin, consequently, of his daugh- 
ter Hannah, the wife of Samuel Sewall. Her uncle. Dr. 
Leonard Hoar, was called to the pastorate here in 1672, as 
associate with the Rev. Thomas Thacher, but the Church re- 
linquished any claim it might have upon him in favor of Har- 
vard College, of which, much to his own sorrow, he was 
chosen President. Her eldest brother, Daniel Quincy, joined 
the Third Church in 1688, and died two years later in early 
manhood. Through her youngest brother, Edmund, fourth 
of the name, born after her death, she was to be still further 
connected with this Church, for Elizabeth, a granddaughter 
of this Edmund, became the wife of Samuel Sewall, who 
was one of its deacons from 1763 to 1771, and his grandson, 
Josiah Quincy, Junior, one of the leading patriots of the early 
revolutionary period, married Abigail Phillips, a child of this 

* Her sister, Mary Savage, died a few joined the Third Church in 1672, but 
weeks later, October 7, 1676. She was we do not find her name on the list of 
the first wife of Ephraim Savage who members. 


3 


Church, being a daughter of the first William Phillips, deacon 
from 1764 to 1793. 

Anna Quincy was staying at the house of her uncle, John 
Hull, on Cotton Hill, in Boston, and on the evening of 
Wednesday, August 30, 1676, she was present at a prayer 
meeting there convened. Samuel Sewall was living with his 
father-in-law, having been married a few months previously. 
This prayer and conference meeting was the first he had ever 
attended, and he has left us an account of it. Emaus Smith 
was the principal speaker, and the passage of scripture com- 
mented upon was the ninth verse of the 1 19th Psalm, “Where- 
withal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed 
thereto according to thy word.” The room seems to have 
been crowded, and, says Sewall, Anna Quincy stood “ against 
the closet door next the entry.” The next day, Thursday, she 
was attacked by fever, and her symptoms were so alarming 
that some of her friends at once began to fear the worst. 
Providentially, her mother was with her. On the morning 
of Sunday the physician said that she was not dangerously 
ill, but at ten o’clock she died. Her funeral was on Monday, 
and, according to the custom of the time, four youths, some 
if not all of whom were members of this congregation, 
served as bearers. Their names were Henry Phillips, Tim- 
othy Dwight, Joseph Tappan and John Alcock. Where she 
was buried is not quite clear. The South, afterward called 
the Granary Burying Ground, had been laid out, and her 
brother, Daniel Quincy, was buried there, in John Hull’s 
tomb, in 1690. We are inclined to think that she was buried 
in the Old or King’s Chapel Burying Ground. 

We have told all there is to tell of this dear child. We get 
one glimpse of her, as she stands against the wall in that 
neighborhood prayer meeting ; and, five days later, we see a 
mournful procession moving towards one of the graveyards 
in what we now know as Tremont Street. May not our faith 
follow her within the veil, and see her there, 

" a fair maiden in her Father’s mansion, 

Clothed with celestial grace, 

And beautiful with all the soul’s expansion ” ? 


4 


The next tombstone which claims our interest to-night is 
that of a man who was prominent in the commercial, social 
and religious life of the town of Boston for more than half a 
century. Judge Sewall records in his diary, January 21, 
1697-98 : “It seems Capt. Scottow died the last night. Thus 
the New England men drop away.” 

Joshua Scottow was born in England, probably in the county 
of Norfolk, in 1614 or 1615. Scothowe signifies “the lot or 
portion on the hill,” and this describes the little Norfolk vil- 
lage which, six or seven hundred years ago, gave its name to the 
family of de Scothowes, who were the lords of the manor there 
and the patrons of the living.' At the beginning of the seven- 
teenth century we find the name in English records spelt 
Scottowe.* Thomasine Scottow, a widow, arrived in Boston 
soon after the settlement of the town, bringing with her two 
sons, Thomas and Joshua. She joined the First Churchy 
September 21, 1634, and her sons, May 19, 1639. Joshua is 
supposed to have been the younger of the two. He must have 
received a good education in England ; he became a mer- 
chant, and was very soon a man of influence in the town and 
colony. In 1639, he was one of the signers of a paper, strongly 
recommending the First Church to place the new meeting- 
house which it was then proposing to build, upon Governor 
Winthrop’s property on Washington Street, the site chosen 
for the Third Church thirty years later. He married, prob- 
ably, in 1640.® He joined the Artillery Company in 1645, and 


^ Scothowe, as the Register of Holm 
Abbey informs us, before the Confessor’s 
time, belonged to Ulfwin or Alfvvin, a 
Saxon nobleman, who gave it to that 
abbey, where it remained at the Confes- 
sor’s survey, and was one of the manors 
appropriated for the monks’ mainte- 
nance. 

In 1120 there was a Jeffry de Scot- 
howe, who had two brothers, Peter, who 
died without issue, and Richard, who 
was lord of the manor and joint patron 
of the living; his eldest son, Ralf de 
Scothowe, died issueless, and Peter his 
brother had the presentation, whose son 
John de Scothowe, sold his share of the 
advowson to Bartholomew de Redham. 


History of the County of Norfolk, Vol. 
VI. pp. 340—341- 

^ John Brewster, son of Francis Brew- 
ster, “ an active parliamentarian during 
the rebellion as a magistrate and deputy 
lieutenant,” married Mary, daughter of 
Alderman Scottowe of Norwich, and 
died in 1677. An English scholar of the 
present day spells his name Skottowe. 

^ It is not known whom he married, 
and the date of his marriage is not re- 
corded. In the town record of births, 
we read: 1641. “Joshua, of Joshua 
and Lydia Scotto, born 30th — 7th month 
and soon after buried.” This was their 
first child. Thomas Scottow had wife 
Joan, and later, wife Sarah. 


5 


was chosen its ensign in 1657 ; we do not understand why he 
was never made its captain, but he was a captain in the mili- 
tia. He served as selectman, or townsman, as the records 
sometimes call it, for several years, he with John Hull being 
elected for the first time, March 9, 1657. After Philip’s war 
he became a great proprietor at Scarborough, where he was 
captain of the garrison and a magistrate.* Here, says Sibley, 
his son Thomas (who graduated at Harvard College in 1677) 
lived for some years and held positions of responsibility, but 
we do not feel sure of this.^ 

Mr. Scottow had a house and garden of about half an acre 
on the north side of Prison Lane, now Court Street, fronting 
on the Scollay estate. He also owned a pasture on the north- 
west side of Beacon Hill, containing about four acres, thus 
described by Mr. Bowditch : “ from Hancock Street easterly 
two hundred and eighty feet on Cambridge Street, or to a 
point fifty-two and a half feet east of Temple Street, and is in 
depth back, towards summit of Beacon Hill, six hundred and 
sixty feet, or just below the line of Derne Street.”^ In 1650, 
he bought a piece of land, a portion of what was known as 
Bellingham’s Marsh, not far from Dock Square, and on one 
angle of this a warehouse was erected, which stood until a 


* He took an active part in the strug- 
gles with the Indians at the eastward, 
and left a journal of his experiences. 

^ Mr. Sibley says that he died before 
1715. Mr. Henry F. Waters has recently 
discovered his will in London, from 
which the date of his death can be de- 
termined proximately. “ Thomas Scot- 
tow of Boston in New England, chirur- 
geon, now bound forth on a voyage to 
sea in the ship Gerrard of London, Cap- 
tain William Dennis commander, 14 
November 1698.” This will, proved 
September 4, 1699, provides : “ To my 
loving sister, Elizabeth Savage, of New 
England aforesaid, all my real and per- 
sonal estate in New England, of what 
kind soever.” Evidently he had neither 
wife nor child. 

In 1649, Mr. Scottow gave to the Li- 
brary of Harvard College ” Henry Ste- 
phens, his Thesaurus, in four volumes, 
in folio,” on the condition that when- 


ever he might have occasion to use 
the work, he should have access to 
it; and on the further condition, that 
if he should be blessed “with any 
child or children, that shall be stu- 
dents of the Greek tongue,” the said 
books should be given to them upon 
their making demand for them. They 
were returned to Mr. Scottow on the 
demand of his son Thomas, during the 
presidency of Mr. Oakes, 1679-1681. 
The receipt for them bears date August 
30, with no year specified. See Quin- 
cy’s History of Harvard University, 
Vol. I. p. 512. 

3 William Dawes, another of the foun- 
ders of the Third Church, when he moved 
from Braintree to Boston, bought an es- 
tate on the east side of Sudbury Street, 
then known as the lane from Prison Lane . 
to the Mill Pond. Part of this estate, 
oshua Scottow afterward bought for 
is son-in-law, Thomas Savage. 


6 




few years ago as one of the ancient landmarks of Boston, — 
the old Iriangular warehouse, so called. In the same neigh- 
borhood, near the junction of Elm and Union Streets, James 
Everill, Joshua Scottow and others had been authorized to 
build a conduit, which, says Dr. Shurtleff, if the early con- 
structed wells are excepted, may be justly said to have been 
the first attempt toward introducing water works in the town. 

Mr. Scottow was evidently a man of energy and public 
spirit ; his name appears constantly in the early records, and 
yet we have very scant material out of w'hich to weave a nar- 
rative of his life.* He was intelligent, and had positive con- 
victions on the various questions and events of the time ; and 
we judge that he was independent and uncompromising in 
saying what he thought. In one instance he found himself 
in somewhat perilous circumstances, in consequence of his 
outspoken indignation against what he conceived to be a pub- 
lic wrong, and he felt obliged to make a retractation in terms 
which seem altogether inconsistent with his general character, 
and which in reviewing his life we cannot but regret. In 
1656, the third execution in Boston for witchcraft took place, 
the victim being Mrs. Anne Hibbins. This was nearly forty 
years before the .terrible panic which had its centre at Salem 


> In the year 1642, La Tour, one of the 
Governors of Acadia, made a proposi- 
tion for free trade between his ports and 
those of New England, and for an ar- 
rangement by which he might receive 
commodities from Europe through New 
England. The first request, for free 
trade, was complied with, but the other 
was refused. La Tour made two or 
three visits to Boston, and was treated 
with much consideration. Scottow was 
one of the merchants who were inter- 
ested in opening this trade, and he acted 
as confidential agent of La Tour in his 
negotiations with the colonial authori- 
ties. 

But there was a wide difference of 
opinion in the colony, on the question 
of unrestricted intercourse with the 
French. “ Governor Winthrop was on 
the liberal side, and subjected himself 
to no little censure by his friendly recep- 
tion of the distinguished Roman Catho- 


lic stranger.” See Life and Letters of 
John Winthrop, Vol. II. pp. 311-318. 

In the winter of 1661-62, when Mr. 
Bradstreet and the Rev. John Norton 
were sailing for England as commis- 
sioners for the colony, it was necessary 
to raise four or five hundred pounds, 
and among those who advanced the 
money, were, Hezekiah Usher, ^100., 
John Hull, f^o., William Davis, ^^25., 
Joshua Scottow, £2.0., Sampson Sheaffe, 
;^2o. 

When the Royal Commissioners came 
to Boston in 1665, to inquire, among 
other things, about certain breaches of the 
Navigation Laws charged against the 
merchants and authorities, one of the 
causes which they proposed to hear and 
determine, was that of Thomas Deane 
and others, plaintiffs, against the Gover- 
nor and Company, and Joshua Scottow, 
merchant, defendants. But the case 
never came to trial. 


7 


Village, and of which we shall have occasion to speak pre- 
sently. Mrs. Hibbins was the widow of a man who had been 
a leading merchant in Boston, and one of the most honored 
citizens of the colony. He had been deputy, assistant, and 
the agent of the colony in England. Of this poor woman it 
was afterward said by the Rev. John Norton, that she had 
been “ hanged for a witch, only for having more wit than her 
neighbors.” On the other hand. Savage writes that she was 
hanged for a witch when she was only a scold. According 
to Hutchinson, she had a bad temper, which made her turbu- 
lent and quarrelsome ; this had brought her under church 
censure, and at length rendered her so odious to her neigh- 
bors as to cause some of them to accuse her of witchcraft. 
She was tried and condemned by a jury, but the verdict was 
set aside by the magistrates, and the case came before the 
General Court. She was called to appear there and to an- 
swer for her life. She defended herself to the best of her 
ability, but the popular clamor was more than she could re- 
sist or the court withstand^ ; she was found guilty, and sentence 
of death was pronounced upon her by John Endicott, Gover- 
nor. It was during this second trial that Mr. Scottow inter- 
posed in contradiction to some testimony which had been 
given against her by one Philip Wharton,* and in so doing, 
he seems to have laid himself open to censure for contempt 
of court. We know nothing of the circumstances, and, in- 
deed, little of the details of the trial, beyond what we find in 
the letter of apology which he thought it necessary to write on 
the following day, and which is still preserved among the 
public archives at our State House.* This letter reads as fol- 
lows : — 


“ To the Honoured Court now assembled. 

“ Whereas there was yesterday by myselfe presented in court a writ- 
ing which as it is or may be by any resented that thereby I intended 


^ Hubbard, in his History of New 
England, says: “ Vox fopicli went 
sore against her, and was the chiefest 
part of the evidence against her, as some 
thought. It fared with her in some sense 


as it did with Joan of Arc the 

which some counted a saint, and some 
a witch.” 

2 A Philip Wharton died in the alms- 
house in Boston, December lo, 1698. 


8 


to obstruct the course of justice against Mrs. Ilibbins and allso that 
my purpose was to cast slurr and to weaken the testimony of any 
which were to testify in her case, I did desire in my short speech before 
the presenting of the said writing to take of [off] any such apprehen- 
sions, and had I not been prevented by Phillip Wharton’s testimony 
being called in the first place (which I expected not) I had apologized 
for myselfe in the said writing on that behalf. I doe humbly crave 
favour from this Honoured Court and assembly not soe to be under- 
stood, as far as I am privy to mine owne heart, no such thought ever 
being in my bosome ; as for the manner of my unseasonable present- 
ing of the said writing, I was sorry that thereby I should give occasion 
to any to judge of mee as above expressed, and ci'ave it may be 
imputed to my ignorance in the formalities of court proceedings, but 
conceiving what I had to say related to Phillip Wharton’s testimony 
did then at the end of the reading of his testimony crave favour from 
the court to produce what I had to say concerning his evidence, hav- 
ing acquainted himselfe with the buysiness formerly : As for the 
apprehension of any that it might be a plotted buysiness between 
some and myselfe, that it should be soe ordered that Phillip Wharton’s 
testimony should bee first produced and my writing soe to follow to 
the attayning of the evill ends above mentioned, I should humbly 
beg further favour, and doe hereby solemnly and seriously professe and 
protest, that I never communicated with any person whatsoever about 
the said writing, nor that I did ever discourse with Mrs. Hibbins or 
any other about the pi'emises except the Secretary after the lecture 
yesterday was ended, immediately upon the sitting of the court and 
my writing being ended, only telling him I had something to say 
about Phillip Wharton’s testimony. I am cordially sorry that any- 
thing from mee eyther by word or writing should anyway tend to the 
hardening of Mrs. Hibbins in her sinfull and abominable courses, or 
that I should give offence to the Honoured Court, my deare brethren 
in the church, or any others, thus craving a candide interpretation of 
these my present or former words, and begging of God that the sword 
of justice may be drawne forth against all wickedness, which is the 
request of Your ever obliged. 

Josh: Scottow. 

Boston this 7 (i) 1655-56.” 

Only under an absolute reign of tenor, could a man of 
Mr. Scottow’s position and influence have felt it necessary to 
apologize in phrases so abject, to save himself from condem- 
nation and disgrace. Mrs. Hibbins is believed to have had the 
sympathy of the honored ministers of the First Church, Mr. 


9 


Wilson and Mr. Norton ; but they could not save her life. 
She was executed, June 19, 1656. The persons named in 
her will, to administer upon her estate, were Thomas Clarke, 
Edward Hutchinson, William Hudson, Joshua Scottow and 
Peter Oliver. 

In 1669, Mr. Scottow, with John Hull, Hezekiah Usher, 
Thomas Savage, Edward Rawson, Peter Oliver, John Alden 
and others, seceded from the First Church and founded the 
Third or South Church. They had been opposed to the call 
of the Rev. John Davenport of New Haven, to the pastorate 
made vacant by the death of Mr. Wilson, and they had been 
dissatisfied, still more, with the methods employed to bring 
him to Boston. They determined, therefore, to organize a 
new church, for which, indeed, there was ample room in the 
growing town. They were thwarted in every possible way 
by the majority led by Governor Bellingham, and years passed 
before they were recognized by their brethren from whose 
fellowship they had felt it to be their duty to withdraw. We 
do not propose to go into the history of this old controversy 
on this occasion, further than to illustrate the force of charac- 
ter displayed by the men of the minority. They had to meet 
opposition and to suffer reproach for what they believed to 
be the truth. The question of the baptismal, or half-way 
covenant, lay at the root of the difficulty, but the issue came 
to involve the rights of the individual and the rights of a 
minority in the administration of church affairs. It required 
some courage to be a friend, and much more to be a member, 
of the South Church in those days. Failing, first, to prevent 
the formation and recognition of the church, and then, to 
create a panic among the ministers and churches outside 
Boston, the ultra conservative party carried the quarrel to the 
General Court. Here, a committee on the state of the colony 
was induced to prepare a report, which was adopted, charg- 
ing the South Church and the ministers and churches who 
stood by it, with being the occasion of all the calamities, 
temporal and spiritual, with which Massachusetts was threat- 
ened. One paragraph will show the temper of this report. 

2 


/ 


* 


10 


“ Declension from the primitive foundation work ; innovation in doc- 
trine and worship, opinion and practice; an invasion of the rights, 
liberties and privileges of churches; an usurpation of a lordly, 
prelatical power over God’s heritage ; a subversion of gospel order ; 
and all this with a dangerous tendency to the utter devastation of 
these churches; turning the pleasant gardens of Christ into a wilder- 
ness ; and the inevitable and total extirpation of the principles and 
pillars of the congregational way; these are the leaven, the corrupting 
gangrene, the infecting, spreading plague, the provoking image of 
jealousy set up before the Lord, the accursed thing, which hath pro- 
voked the divine wrath, and doth furthur threaten destruction.”^ 


In other words, a company of Christian men had organized 
a church in accordance with their own convictions of duty. 

But Joshua Scottow, Edward Rawson and their associates 
proved themselves equal to the emergency. The next elec- 
tion was made to turn on the question of friendship for the 
new church, or opposition to it ; the men v/ho had voted for 
the obnoxious report, for the most part,>lost their seats ; and, 
at the next session of the Court, a new report was adopted, 
reversing, in effect, the judgment of the preceding year. 

Mr. Scottow was one of the trustees to whom Mrs. Norton 
made her conveyances of land for the new meeting-house, 
the first in 1669, the second in 1677, and, no doubt, he con- 
tributed his share towards the erection of the building. He 
served with Samuel Sewall, John Joyliffe and others, as an 
overseer of seats, and he assisted in sustaining the neigh- 
borhood prayer meeting of which we have spoken, and 
which met from house to house. He seems to have been 
on intimate terms with Judge Sewall, who was his near 
neighbor on Cotton Hill, and in full sympathy with him in 
his prayers and labors in behalf of this church. 

As Mr. Scottow advanced in age, he lost the buoyancy, the 


^ Mr. Oakes, of Cambridge, in his 
election sermon in 1673, after quoting 
the above paragraph, well says: “I 
need give you no other instance of this 
evil spirit of jealousy and calumny than 
this. Here is good measure, pressed 
down, shaken together and running 
over.” He goes on to rebuke in severe 
terms the men who are “ wont to make 


and improve false alarms of danger, that 
people may believe that religion and 
liberties are at the stake, and in danger 
to be lost.” “These calumnies,” he 
adds, “ are immoralities and scandalous 
evils, and it is the duty of God’s ser- 
vants to lift up their voice as a trumpet, 
to cry aloud and not spare them that 
are guilty, whatever the issue be.” 


II 


energy and the elasticity of his earlier and mature years ; his 
contemporaries were passing away, and he found himself out 
of sympathy with the new generation of men who were taking 
their places. He could not appreciate them, and they could 
not understand him. It was not uncommon for Puritan lead- 
ers, clergymen as well as laymen, to mourn over what they 
called the degeneracy of the times ; but they had this for their 
justification as compared with the religious pessimists of this 
day, that they had set before themselves and their generation 
so high a standard, — so sublime a model, — for social life and 
for government, that it could hardly be reached, much less 
permanently realized. William Stoughton thus lamented, in 
an election sermon preached in 1668 : “ God sifted a whole 

nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilder- 
ness. Alas ! how is New England in danger this day to be 
lost even in New England! to be buried in its own ruins ! 
How is the good grain diminished and the chaff increased 1 ” 
Thomas Walley, of Barnstable, that “blessed son of peace,” 
uttered a similar lamentation in an election sermon at Ply- 
mouth in 1669: “ How is New England fallen! The land 
that was a land of Holiness, hath lost her Holiness.” 

In 1691, Mr. Scottow issued a pamphlet of 26 pp., with 
the following quaint title : “ Old Men’s Tears for their Own 

Declensions, mingled with Fears of their and posterities 
further falling off from New England’s Primitive Constitution. 
Published by some of Boston’s old Planters and some other.” 
This publication is a lamentation over the state of the country, 
and evidently it represented the opinions of other old men 
besides Mr. Scottow who was responsible for it. The writer 
imagined that the prevalence of sin had called down the 
vengeance of heaven upon the land, which was shown in many 
instances of punishment, as “ strange diseases, not suited 
formerly to the pure and serene air of our climate (whither 
strangers were wont to have recourse to recover their desired 
health). Not only with the infectious small-pox have we 
laboured under, but with burning and spotted fevers,” etc. 
The Indian war and the ill-success of the great expedition 


12 


against Canada in the preceding year, were marks of divine 
displeasure. “ Hath he not himself fought against us, by 
the stars in their courses, and his anger smoked against our 
prayers ; raising snow and vapour, and his cold (which no 
man can abide) with the stormy wind fulfilling his word, to 
the impeding and disappointment of our naval military design, 
and disinabling our fleet.” 

The author of the pamphlet thus witnesses against the de- 
generacy of the times : “ Our spot is not the spot of God’s 

children ; the old puritan garb, and gravity of heart, and 
habit lost and ridiculed into strange and fantastic fashions 

and attire, the virgins dress and matrons veil, showing 

their power on their heads because of the holy angels, turned 
into powdered foretops and top gallants attire, not becoming 
the Christian, but the comedian assembly, not the church 
but stage-play, where the devil sits regent in his dominion, as 
he once boasted out of the mouth of a demoniack, church 
member, he there took possession of, and made this response 
to the church, supplicating her deliverance ; and as now we 
may and must say New England is not to be found in New Eng- 
land, nor Boston in Boston ; it is become a lost town (as at first 
it was called ;) we must now cry out, our leanness, our lean- 
ness, our apostacy, our apostacy, our atheism, spiritual idolatry, 
adultery, formality in worship, carnal and vain confidence 
in church privileges, forgetting of God our rock, and multi- 
tude of other abominations.” ^ 

Three years later, Mr. Scottow printed a larger work, with 
this suggestive title page : “A Narrative of the Planting of 
the Massachusetts Colony, Anno 1628. With the Lord’s 
Signal Presence the First Thirty Years. Also a Caution 
from New England’s Apostle, the Great Cotton, How to Es- 
cape the Calamity, which might Befall them or their Posterity. 
And Confirmed by the Evangelist Norton with Prognosticks 
from the Famous Dr. Owen, Concerning the Fate of these 
Churches, and Animadversions upon the Anger of God, in 

^ This sketch of the contents of the the Collections of the Mass. Hist. Soci- 
pamphlet is from the Second Series of ety, Vol. IV. pp. 102, 103. 


13 


sending of Evil Angels among us. Published by Old 
Planters, the Authors of the Old Mens Tears. Boston, 
Printed and Sold by Benjamin Harris, at the sign of the 
Bible over against the Blew-Anchor 1694.”^ 

It appears that, as in the case of the previous publication, 
more than one person was concerned in the authorship. The 
dedication was to the venerable Simon Bradstreet, late Gov- 
ernor, and for many years a member of the South Church, 
and we make two extracts from it : 

“The long Experience of your being the only Surviving Antiquary 
of us Nov-Angles, the Prime Secretary and Register of our civil and 
sacred Records, and the Bifronted Janus who saw the Closure of the 
Old, and the Overture of this New-Albion World.” 

“The Late Series of Divine Dispensations tending not only to the 
dissolving of the Cement, but to the subverting of the Basis of that 
Fabrick which the wonderful worker hath here so stupendiously erected, 
nor to the Cropping off their Branches ; but to the Rooting up of the 
tender Plant, which the Heavenly Father, here so graciously hath 
Planted ; hath put some of the Old Relict Planters, upon sniitmg on 
our thighs, and serious considerations of what provoking evils we 
have committed, and what special sins, God now would bring to our 
Remembrance, whereby we have so highly displeased our Benign God, 
and Gracious Father, thus tremenduously to treat us : the Aspect of 
Providence so terribly varying, from what formerly it was wont to be, 
puts us into an amusing amazement. And being in this perplexed 
Labyrinth, of Distracting thoughts of heart, there was darted into our 
meditations, a Caution which above Eight Septenaries of years past, 
came from the first Seraphical Doctor of Bosto?i Church.” 

We could wish that there were more narration in this 
“ Narrative.” It contains general references to the early 
emigration and to the trials which followed, — the Indian wars, 
antinomianism, the quakers, the prevalence of witchcraft, etc., 
and the writer then relapses into the same almost broken- 
hearted lamentations as before. The period was indeed a 
trying one for New England ; Cotton Mather called the years 
1690 to 1700 “the woeful decade”; but, fortunately, there 
were younger and braver hearts to cope with the trials and to 

^ Mass. Hist. Collections, Fourth Series, Vol. IV. 


14 


V overcome the difficulties. Brighter days came, although 
Simon Bradstreet and Joshua Scottow did not live to see and 
rejoice in their light. 

The two friends died within less than a year of each other, 
• Bradstreet, March 27, 1697, and Scottow, on the 21st of the 
January following, in the midst of a week of unusually severe 
wintry weather. Judge Sewall records : 

“ Bj reason of the severity of the wether, and a great Cold, I went 
not to the catechising Jany 18, nor to the Lecture January 20th. 

“Jany 21, Sixth day, hL Willard comes to visit us; though He him- 
self also is very much indisposed by the cold : prays with us. 
Speaks as if heard Capt. Scottow was dead : but was not very certain. 
But before he went away, Jno. Roberts came to invite me to be a Bearer 
to-morrow. It seems Capt. Scottow died the last night. Thus the 
New England Men drop away. 

“ Seventh-day, Jany 22, 1697-8, Capt. Joshua Scottow is buried in 
the old burying place; Bearers, Maj’^ Gen^ Winthrop, M’’ Cook, Col. 
Hutchinson, Sewall, Sergeant, Walley : Extream Cold. No minister 
at Capt. Scottow’s Funeral; nor wife nor daughter. 

“Jany 23, 1697-8, Very Cold. M'' Fitch preacheth with us and 
pronounceth the blessing, M*' Willard not being there, by reason of 
illness : Text was. The Lord is my Shepherd &c. M'^ Willard comes 

abroad in the Afternoon, and preacheth excellently; baptiseth a child 
and a woman. Very thin assemblies this Sabbath, and last; and great 
coughing : Very few women there. M*" Willard pray’d for mitigation 
of the wether : and the South Wind begins to blow with some vigor.” 

Mr. Scottow’s age, given on his tomb-stone, was eighty- 
three. Several of his family were members of this Church.^ 
His daughter Mary was the wife of Samuel Checkley, for 
many years one of its deacons, who died in 173S. Their son, 
the Rev. Samuel Checkley, was the first minister of the New 
South Church ; their grandson, the Rev. Samuel Checkley, 


^ His daughters joined the Third 
Church in the following order: Eliza- 
beth, wife of Thomas Savage, in 1670; 
Lydia, wife successively of Benjamin 
Gibbs, Anthony Checkley and William 
Colman, in 1671 ; Rebecca, wife of 
the Rev. Benjamin Blakeman, in 1680 ; 
Sarah, wife of Samuel Walker, in 1683 ; 
Mary, wife of Samuel Checkley, in 1685. 


All these sisters, with the exception of 
Lydia, and their brother, Thomas, seem 
to have owned the covenant in 1669; 
but some of them were then very young, 
Rebecca, seventeen years of age, Mary, 
thirteen, and Thomas, only ten. Lydia, 
Mrs. Colman, was suggested as a pos- 
sible wife for Judge Sewall, when he was 
a widower, in 1720. 


15 


was a minister of the Second Church ; and their granddaugh- 
ter, Elizabeth Checkley, became the wife of Samuel Adams, 
the patriot, who wrote of her in the Family Bible, at the time 
of her death in i 757 • Christian race with a re- 

markable steadiness and finished it in triumph.’^ Another 
granddaughter, Mary Bowles, married Benjamin Lynde, Jun., 
of Salem, and in this line Joshua Scottow has descendants 
living in Boston to-day. 

Sewall records the death of Mrs. Scottow in May, 1707, at 
the age of eighty-six. The bearers at her funeral were Sam- 
uel Sewall, Isaac Addington, James Hill, Nathaniel Williams, 
John Ballentine and John Coney. 

There is another founder of this church, to whom it is our 
privilege this evening to pay our tribute of respectful and grate- 
ful remembrance, — John Alden, whose tombstone has been 
given to us by representatives of the Alden name and lineage 
in this generation. 

John Alden was the eldest son of John Alden and his wife 
Priscilla Mullens, who came over in the “Mayflower” in 
1620. Through his parentage he connects this Church in- 
directly with the Plymouth Pilgrims, but it has a closer and 
direct connection with them ; for in 1671, Mary Chilton, one 
of their number, with her husband, John Winslow, moved 
from Plymouth to Boston, and joined its membership by a 
letter of dismission and recommendation still preserved on 
our files. John Alden, the second, was born at Plymouth in 
1626 or 1627, afterward lived in Duxbury, was admitted free- 
man in 1646, and came to Boston in 1659. lived here on a 
passage leading from Cambridge Street to Sudbury Street, from 
him called Alden’s Lane, until 1846, when, Drake says, it was 
dignified with the name of Alden Street. He was a mariner, 
“ a man of sound judgment, active business habits and un 
exceptionable moral character.” He united with the brethren 
of the First Church who were opposed to the coming of Mr. 
Davenport, in the organization of the Third Church, but he 
sailed for England late in the year 1669, in command of a 


i6 


/ 


vessel belonging to John HnllJ and was absent from home for 
more than a year, so that he was spared much of the anxiety 
and annoyance to which the other members were subjected 
at that period. He afterward commanded for many years the 
armed vessel belonging to the colony, which supplied the 
forts to the eastward with provisions and stores. He saw 
service in the French and Indian wars; in 1690 he was ap- 
pointed to treat with the Indians at Sagadahock, and was 
successful in his negotiations. He had accumulated a good 
property, and had attained an honorable age, when, for some 
unexplained reason, in the midst of the witchcraft madness 
in 1692, he was accused, arrested and imprisoned, as being 
in league with the evil one. He had lived in Boston for more 
than thirty years, and had maintained an unblemished repu- 
tation as a Christian man and as a citizen, but all this availed 
nothing. When the venerable widow of the Rev. Thomas 
Thacher, the first minister of this Church, was suspected as 
a witch, no one was safe. Captain Alden is the only one 
among those accused, who has left a written statement of his 
arrest, examination and subsequent experiences, and we 
give this entire. 

“John Alden Sr. of Boston, in the county of Suffolk, mariner, on 
the twentj-eighth day of May, 1692, was sent for by the magistrates of 
Salem, in the county of Essex, upon the accusation of a company of 
poor distracted or possessed creatures or witches ; and being sent by 
Mr. Stoughton, arrived there on the 31st of May, and appeared at 
Salem Village, before Mr. Gedney, Mr. Hathorne and Mr. Corwin. 

“ Those wenches being present who played their juggling tricks, 
falling down, crying out, and staring in people’s faces, the magistrates 
demanded of them several times, who it was, of all the people in the 
room, that hurt them. One of these accusers pointed several times at 
one Captain Hill, there present, but spake nothing. The same accuser 

‘ John Hull refers to some of Alden’s estate, — near five hundred pounds dam- 
voyages in his Diary : age and loss to me, the Bermuda Com- 

“ 1669. nth month. Master John pany seizing that sort of tobacco. The 
Alden went for England, in the Ketch vessel returned not home until May, 
“ Friendship,” being three-fourths mine ; 1671.” 

camewellto Westchester; and, through “1672. Also I lost my Ketch, three- 
Mr. Alden’s desire to expedite, he dealt fourths, with her lading, from Virginia, 
with a man wanting honesty, who hin- taken by the Dutch from John Alden, 
dered him much time, and lost me much worth about two hundred pounds.” 


17 


had a man standing at her back to hold her up. He stooped down to 
her ear: then she cried out, ‘ Alden, Alden afflicted her.’ One of the 
magistrates asked her if she had ever seen Alden. She answered, 

‘ No.’ He asked her how she knew it was Alden. She said the man 
told her so. 

“ Then all were ordered to go down in the street, where a ring was 
made ; and the same accuser cried out, ‘ There stands Alden, a bold fel- 
low, with his hat on before the judges : he sells powder and shot to the 

Indians and French ’ Then was Alden committed to the 

marshal’s custody, and his sword taken from him ; for they said he 
afflicted them with his sword. After some hours, Alden was sent for 
to the meeting-house in the Village, before the magistrates, who re- 
quired Alden to stand upon a chair, to the open view of all the people. 

“ The accusers cried out that Alden pinched them then, when he 
stood upon the chair, in the sight of all the people, a good way distant 
from them. One of the magistrates bid the marshal to hold open Al- 
den’s hands, that he might not pinch those creatures. Alden asked 
them why they should think that he should come to that village to 
afflict those persons that he never knew or saw before. Mr. Gedney 
bid Alden to confess, and give glory to God. Alden said he hoped 
he should give glory to God, and hoped he should never gratify the 
Devil : but appealed to all that ever knew him, if they ever suspected 
him to be such a person ; and challenged any one that could bring in 
any thing on their own knowledge, that might give suspicion of his 
being such an one. Mr. Gedney said he had known Alden many years, 
and had been at sea with him, and always looked upon him to be an 
honest man ; but now he saw cause to alter his judgment. Alden an- 
swered, he was sorry for that, but he hoped God would clear up his 
innocency, that he would recall that judgment again; and added, 
that he hoped that he should, with Job, maintain his integrity till he 
died. They bid Alden look upon the accusers, which he did, and then 
they fell down. Alden asked Mr. Gedney what reason there could be 
given why Alden’s looking upon him did not strike him down as 
well ; but no reason was given that I heard. But the accusers were 
brought to Alden to touch them; and this touch, they said, made 
them well. Alden began to speak of the Providence of God in suffer- 
ing these creatures to accuse innocent persons. Mr. Noyes asked Al- 
den why he should offer to speak of the Providence of God : God, by 
his Providence (said Mr. Noyes), governs the world, and keeps it in 
peace ; and so went on with discourse, and stopped Alden’s mouth as 
fo that. Alden told Mr. Gedney that he could assure him that there 
was a lying spirit in them ; for I can assure you that there is not a 
word of truth in all these say of me. But Alden was again committed 
to the marshal, and his mittimus written. 

3 


“ To Boston Alden was carried bj a constable : no bail would be 
taken for him, but was delivered to the prison-keeper, where he re- 
mained fifteen weeks; and then, observing the manner of trials, and 
evidence then taken, was at length prevailed with to make his escape. 

Per John Alden.” 

The 77 iittimus was signed by John Hathorn and Jonathan 
Corwin, and Alden was, as he says, taken in charge by a 
constable, carried to Boston and lodged in jail, where he re- 
mained for fifteen weeks. He. “ made his escape about the 
middle of September, at the bloodyest crisis of the tragedy, 
and just before the execution of nine of the victims, including 
that of Giles Corey. He is understood to have fled to Dux- 
bury, where his relatives secreted him. He made his appear- 
ance among them late at night, and on their asking an expla- 
nation of his unexpected visit at that hour, replied that he 
was flying from the devil, and the devil was after him. After 
awhile, when the delusion had abated, and people were com- 
ing to their senses, he delivered himself up, and was bound 
over to the Superior Court at Boston, the last Tuesday in 
April, 1693, when, no one appearing to prosecute, he, with 
some hundred and fifty others, was discharged by proclama- 
tion, and all judicial proceedings were brought to a close. It 
is to be feared that ever after, to his dying day, when the sub- 
ject of his experience on the 3rst of May, 1692, was referred 
to, the old sailor indulged in rather strong expressions.”^ 

While he was lying in prison, a prayer meeting was held 
at his house, of which Sewall has left us an account. The 
ministers of the First and Second Churches, and his own pas- 
tor, Mr. Willard, offered prayer for him and his family, as 
did also his brethren Joshua Scottow and Jame^ Hill. Judge 
Sewall, who, happily, was not called to sit in judgment in 
the case of his fellow church-member, read a sermon on the 
all-sufficiency of God. The occasion must have been a solemn 
one. These good men were baffled and awe-stricken by the 
manifestations on every hand, of what they believed to be 

' Upham’s History of Witchcraft, Vol. II. p. 246. 


19 

diabolical agency. To them, witchcraft was a very real, and 
therefore a very terrible thing. 

After the dark cloud had passed away, Judge Sewall, in the 
largeness and tenderness of his heart, called on the household 
with whom he had prayed in the hour of their adversity, to 
congratulate them on the issue. He says in his journal : 
‘^June 12, 1693. I visit Capt. Alden and his wife, and tell 
them I was sorry for their Sorrow and Temptations by reason 
of his Imprisonment, and that was glad of his Restauration.” 

Two or three years later, the stout hearted old captain com- 
manded a brigantine called the “ Endeavour.” in an expedition 
on the eastern coast. His father was the last survivor of the 
men who signed the compact in Plymouth Harbor, and he 
seems to have had a similarly vigorous constitution. He sur- 
vived all but three or four of the founders of this Church, and 
died in 1702, at the age of eighty, according to some of the 
genealogists, but his gravestone says seventy-five. Judge 
Sewall was constant in his friendship for him to the end. In 
his journal he says : 

“ Satterdav March 14 1 701-2 At 5 p. m. Capt. John Alden expired j 
Going to visit him, I happened to be there at the time.” 

Captain Alden was twice married. His first wife, Eliz- 
abeth, died before 1660. In this year he married Elizabeth, 
daughter of William Phillips and widow of Abiel Everill.^ 
She died in the winter of 1695-96. Sewall says : 

“ Feb. 7, 1695-6. Mrs. Alden is buried. Bearers were M*" Chiever, 
Capt. Hill, Capt. Williams, M’^ Walle_f, M^ Ballentine. 

After his wife’s death. Captain Alden lived with his daugh- 
ter Elizabeth. She married, first, John, son of John Walley, 
mariner, and secondly, Simon Willard, a son of the second 
minister of the South Church. Her son, Abiel Walley, be- 
came a prominent -merchant, and in 1721 was appointed 
comptroller of His Majesty’s Customs in Boston. He joined 
the South Church in 1717, and afterward was a leading 

> 1660. “ John Aldine & Elizabeth deceased, were married ist Aprill by 
Everill, widow, relict of Abiell Everill, John Endecott Gov.” Town Records. 


20 


member of the New North Church. Zechariah Alden grad- 
uated at Harvard College in 1692, during his father’s impris- 
onment in Boston. In the catalogue he ranks second, in a 
class of six. 

Thus briefly have we traced the history, so far as it is ac- 
cessible to us, of two of the men who laid the foundations of 
this ancient church. They and their contemporaries seem 
very far away from us ; historically, we are as widely removed 
from them, as they were from the times of the first Tudor 
king in England, from the earlier years of the reign of Charles 
V., from the days when Ghent was still a proud and free city, 
when John Tetzel was selling indulgences in Germany, when, 
like distant thunder, the first proclamation of a pure gospel 
by Luther was making itself heard in Rome. And yet, how 
much more have we in common with the New England fathers 
of the seventeenth century, than they had with the men who 
liv^ed at the beginning of the sixteenth. In their circumstan- 
ces and conditions externally, Scottow and Alden, Rawson 
and Oliver, were very different from ourselves ; but not so 
much so, in their inner experiences, and in the springs and 
forces of their spiritual life. Their trials were not just like 
ours ; we have no personal knowledge of Indian massacres 
and witchcraft terrors ; but we have troubles, temptations and 
forebodings of our own, and these are perhaps no less, certainly 
no more, hard to bear than were theirs. Assuredly, in their 
love for this Church, we who are one with them in its goodly 
fellowship, would seek to be altogether like them, and in 
their steadfast devotion to Him who is its Lord and Head. 








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